The sanatana dharma

Many thanks to Dr. G. L. Bhan (U.K.) for the following.

Me: ...I'm spiritual and not religious and see Hinduism as a philosophy and not as a religion.

Dr. Bhan: Hindu dharma is both.

In reality it is a spiritual philosophy, the most comprehensive known to mankind. To achieve spiritual 'growth', however, dharma suggests a way of life - how a Hindu ought to live, consistent with dharma. This has come to be known as the 'Hindu way of life'. Nevertheless, Sanatana dharma is not dogmatic, nor restrictive, giving full freedom to its followers.

Bhagavad Geeta makes it clear that human mind and its needs are varied and diverse. It states that one may achieve self-realisation through the path of knowledge, as also through devotion. Most human minds have a natural tendency to follow the path of devotion - it is on that path that people diversify, evolving various modes of worship according to their aptitude. When people, or communities, make these practices systematic and organised you have what could be defined as religion within the Hindu context.

In practice, sanatana dharma includes all these. One can pick and choose - all practices are valid so long as the individual lives the life according to dharmic tenets, and remains on the path that will lead to moksha.

That is not all - it is recognised that most human beings, slave to their desires, will not be able to achieve that goal - they will continue to stay in aavaa-gavan - the cycle of rebirths, taking responsibility for one's karmas.

There is wisdom and pragmatism.

Me: Thank you! That is a very clear description. I've been convinced of several layers of knowledge in vedic texts (not just two or three layers that is usually accepted); and though it's open knowledge, it's locked by the spiritual advancement of one; and maybe unlocked in steps.

The vikaaras you mention are difficult to overcome, and even more difficult is to get rid of the inner ego due to spiritual advancement or arrogance of apparent victory over the vikaaras. My simplest possible extract from Geeta - true belief in getting rid of 'aham', is difficult to achieve.

Working for success

Many thanks to B. Bh. - reproduced from a private communication:

All activities in life, large or small, get broken into just three elements – and only three ‘energies’ or ‘capabilities’ are required to achieve it.

1. Iccha Shakti: this is the power of ‘Resolve’ or Sankalpa. It helps define the goal. It is required to believe in the goal, and the firmness with which we decide to achieve it.

2. Gyana Shakti: The knowledge of how to reach the goal. The need for meticulous planning. The need to discover the alternate ways, if any, to achieve it.

3. Kriya Shakti: The actual work to reach the goal. Just setting the goal, and knowing how to reach it will not achieve it.

Gyana and Kriya Shakti should only partially influence Iccha Shakti. Otherwise, we will never set great aspirations. At the time of setting the goal, we may not know how we are going to achieve it. We may not have the resources to work to achieve it. But, if we are determined, we will ‘find out’ how to do it, and we will create the necessary action or work for it.

The importance of all three are sometimes not understood – and people focus only on Gyana and Kriya. But without the resolve, it is easy to change the goal because our knowledge or capacity made us think that it is unachievable.

Iccha Shakti ensures that we may need to change our plan or execution, but that we never change our goal.

Eleven attributes for success

Many thanks to B. Bh. for sharing this with me. I have been very fortunate to have been explained the eleven attributes for success according to Hindu scriptures (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_scriptures); such that this list of eleven attributes is 'complete' - nothing can be added or removed, meaningfully.

1. Shraddhaam – “Faith. Faith in your goal. Faith in yourself. Faith in your mentor. Faith in your path .. if you believe in it, problems are challenges to overcome, - if you don’t believe in it, problems are obstacles to deter you.”

2. Medhaam – “Memory. To keep your goal in mind. To remember your experiences. Knowledge – because knowledge exists only if you remember.”

3. Yasha – “Fame. To open doors and opportunities. To create partnerships and alliances. To foster trust and confidence. To use a path which will not sully the name.”

4. Pragyaam – “Intelligence. Common sense. To unravel complex tasks into simple rules. To understand beyond the perception of senses. To apply knowledge, differentiate between right and wrong, correct and incorrect. To bridge the past (experience), with the future (aspiration).”

5. Vidyaam – “Education. Education is the experience of others in a structured form. To use it to gain time, and not require to make mistakes in order to learn.”

6. Buddhim – “Rationality. Capacity to think (as opposed to intelligence). Capacity to focus. Create knowledge. Capacity to learn.”

7. Shriyam – “Resources. Ability to create resources. Ability to manage them. Whether it is Wealth, manpower, materials, beauty, charm… whatever is required for fulfillment of the goal.”

8. Balam – “Strength and energy. Capacity to carry out the tasks needed to reach the goal.”

9. Tej – “Enthusiasm, brilliance, inspiration – leading to persistence and consistence.”

10. Aayushyam – “Longevity, availability of time to reach the goal. Time management.”

11. Aarogyam – “Good health … more literally, absence of sickness or other obstacle in the path of success. Doing what is required to keep fit – for absence of fitness delays achievement of goals.”

The Prathna and the full shloka thus is:

Om Shraddhaam Medhaam Yasha Pragyaam,
Vidyaam Buddhim Shriyam Balam,
Tej Aayushyam Aarogyam
Dehi may Havya-vahana.

(the last line being, ‘O chariot of gold (fire), please give me these attributes’)

States of mind

Reflective: When the thought reflects back from the mental crust.

Argumentative: When the thought provokes thought(s) and if found contradicting with personal experiences or known knowledge, is quickly rejected by arguments.

Acceptance: When there is 100% acceptance of the thought, either due to logical deduction or much more strongly, due to trust, even when it may contradict known truths.

Adhyatm requires acceptance.

The outer and inner ego

The outer ego is the obvious one – the one due to vikaras; or rarely due to arrogance due to absence of vikaras; and further rarely due to arrogance due to perceived lack of arrogance.

The inner ego is difficult one, and is due to being at nth step of understanding (adhyatm) and when looking down upon < n steps.

The acid test for both is to clone yourself as-is and think how comfortable or uncomfortable you feel with yourself.

(Thanks to B. Bh.)

Programming languages

Reading the Cell technology documentation got me thinking about abstraction levels in programming languages. C vs. Java is the popular example; let us extend our view and consider Assembly vs. C vs. Java vs. .NET. (Orthogonal to productivity or higher abstraction levels is performance, which we don’t consider in this discussion for sake of simplicity.) (Our definition of productivity in the context of programming languages is development ease provided by the language itself, excluding, for example, the use of tools like IDEs).

Assembly is arguably at the lowest level of abstraction from a software expression point of view. C is relatively better, i.e. provides relatively higher abstractions – abstraction in the base language (for example, c = a+b vs. add c,a,b. The former is more intuitive), with subroutines (also good from a software engineering viewpoint as it provides better modularity), with a rich set of standard libraries etc. Java goes further – better abstraction in the base language (for example, Java threads objects vs. threads in C), with Object Oriented paradigm abstraction, automated memory management (no need for programmer to worry about mallocs/frees is likely stripping out an aspect and automating it by runtime features – very nice), a very rich set of standard libraries etc. The Just-in-Time compiler is fascinating technology. However, it solely exists for performance, not for productivity, which is our current focus. Aha, what about virtual machine abstraction? Virtual Machines as a general concept are fascinating things; however, in the current context, specifically, provide deploy-time ease (write-once-read-anywhere characteristic that stems from VM concept alleviates the need to recompile applications when moving to different platforms) and arguably, no development ease or productivity. So, platform-neutrality provided by Java technology is cool, but does not add to development productivity.

Moving onto the .NET platform, the main programming language for it, i.e. C# adds some syntactic sugar but no significant abstractions beyond the Java language. However, the .NET platform adds a significant abstraction when compared to the Java platform – language-neutrality. Our discussion is about programming languages and perhaps the reason why several languages exist rather than one unifying language, beyond the obvious temporal evolution, is perhaps because expression maybe optimised by some language for some problem domain. So, language-neutrality allows one to develop a unit of software in the most suitable language, and mix it with other units of software, possibly written in different languages by same or different person. This is a macro-level mix-n-match in the .NET platform. Additionally, languages like C# 3.0 are likely to allow micro-level mix-n-match with a hybrid of imperative and functional semantics. A philosophical question comes to mind for micro-level mix-n-match – does this improve or worsen complexity? A pragmatic question comes to mind for macro-level mix-n-match – do we have skills base to develop and support n languages in a given team? Since, both micro-level and macro-level mix-n-match are optional, and not mandatory aspect, they must be good things?

In imperative programming languages, ignoring the memory management aspect, programs are essentially linear sequence of instructions to be executed or one of the two control blocks – conditionals (branches) or loops (backward-branches). All other abstractions – like subroutines, OO, etc. maybe optionally added on top. The core set is linear sequence, conditional or loop. Additionally, we have non-imperative programming languages – declarative, functional, logic-based etc. which are outside the scope of this append, but valid for our productivity comparison; however, my understanding of programming languages is limited to make such a comparison. Beyond a technical productivity comparison, it is widely accepted these are niche languages and the skills base is far smaller than imperative counterparts.

Levels of abstraction

Several times I have felt that we have a big fundamental problem re: ‘levels of abstraction’. I have experienced it in communication using natural/formal languages, writing/designing software and in personal relationships. It appears that we not only have the obvious problem of two people with different levels of abstraction for a given thought at a given time, but also the fact that our intuitive understanding of ‘levels of abstraction’ is ‘discrete’ as opposed to ‘continuous’, which is more likely to be the reality.

What I mean by discrete vs. continuous is perhaps best expressed by a simple example: thinking about integral pairs that satisfy ‘y=x’ vs. thinking about a straight line on a graph.

For example, we can see a car as 1) a box, or 2) a box with glass windows, 3) ... with steering wheel, brakes, gears etc. …n) (further deeper physical/mechanical view) m) (further deeper atomic view) etc. In all cases above we have discrete views. How should we learn to think about the continuity and furthermore, how should we express it?

Furthermore, discrete ‘is an abstraction for’ continuous. So talking about continuous abstractions equates to not-so-abstract abstractions. Hmm... total nonsense?

Versatility with levels of abstractions creates beauty, for example -- a painting that appears something when seen 10 feet away, something else, much richer and finer, when seen from a foot and something else yet again when seen closely; or a musical note with different pitches; or a relationship between a Father and a Son, where the father can be a Father or a Friend. Fractal nature of Nature?

Typo!

Thanks to Megha for letting me know.

I have a typo in the blog url - 'adyathm' should be 'adhyatm or adhyātma'.

My simple understanding of the term ‘adhyātma' is non-materialism or spiritual and is an antonym for 'bhautik or bhautika' or materialism. Both words come from Sanskrit language and are also present in Hindi language.

I couldn’t find an accurate description on the web after a quick google, the best link so far is: http://vedabase.net/a/adhyatma (most others mix it with religion, which I think is orthogonal).

State of the World vs. State of the Mind and the Middle Path

This is inspired by the comments to my first entry by Rashmi and conversations with Marisa and Pulkit. I didn’t quite understand the comments fully made by Rashmi at that time, since I was thinking in a different context in my first post. It is little abstract, in order to avoid diluting the real thing. There is some noise though.

State of the World vs. State of the Mind and the Middle Path

So, how can we make a contribution to this world? The obvious first thought is to change the state of the world. Another school of thought is to change the state of the mind. Yet another is ‘I don’t care’. Perhaps, the best one, in my mind, is the middle path between the first two.

The first one (Logic): After some thought, we quickly realise that this is difficult thing to do for individuals and perhaps even more difficult to assess. The amount of influence we have as an individual to change the state of the world is limited; but certainly, some positive, how-so-ever small changes can be made. Very temporal.

The second one (Spiritual): Without much thought, we quickly realise that this is difficult thing to do. But, unlike the first, the amount of influence we have as an individual to change the state of the mind is complete and absolute.

(Some interesting noise: I think there are domains where logic is not applicable, and when applied leads to misleading, but intuitive thoughts or worse, chaos. So, if we accept this then, we must realise that there will be things that we don’t understand at any given time; a) which someone else may have a better understanding at that given time, or b) we may understand it better in some other time (past or future)).

The third one (Ignorance is bliss): This viewpoint is fine. It may or is likely to change sometime in future, which is good. (Some interesting noise: If ignorance is bliss, why do we seek knowledge? – by someone).

The last one (Borrowed from Buddhism, in particular, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's interpretation of it): Why Middle? Is it because I couldn’t make up my mind? No. The answer is little vague – Consider two things.

a) ‘Nature has better imagination than humans’ (by someone famous, prob. Feynman).
b) I was recently told that Buddha tried a simple experiment in quest for happiness – he ate lots and lots of food, but didn’t find happiness; he tried no or very little food for several days and didn’t find happiness. But the middle path, created by nature, gave most happiness.

A middle path that aims to positively change the state of the world and the state of the mind, should create a mind that is least surprised by negative changes in the state of the world or the state of the mind, as it benefits from the best-of-both and allows for mutual-compensation. By least surprised, I mean least surprised by noise.


The easy bit - that describes the middle path, is done. The difficult bit is me absorbing the idea, more so, following it and even more - assessing it. It also appears that there is little conscious effort that can be made to absorb or follow it, assessment seems un-necessary. If so, then this reduces to a sub- conscious thought.

What’s the point of this blog entry? The point is not to convince you something is good or better, but to simply put something in your sub- conscious, which by reading this has already happened (reminds me of the ‘Don’t think of Pink Elephant’ that someone recently mentioned to me!).

The mystical twenty year window

I just noticed a pattern amongst some very successful people and organizations – there is a twenty year window from the first success and beginning of the peak, for example, Microsoft or Infosys. Obviously, this is purely a speculation, but with some basis :). Furthermore, towards the end of this first twenty year window or so, the passions work towards another window – most likely by completely reinventing one-self or the organization, perhaps not the first time, but this is most significant re-invention. This is incredibly difficult, but perhaps most satisfying, when successful.

One abstraction for this would find something very reassuring about number 2, than number 1 or 3 or some other number – perhaps due to ‘Law of Diminishing Returns’. Or maybe due to ‘The Power of Two Random Choices’, which doesn’t directly fit, but is somewhat connected.

Frames of reference

We all accept the three dimensions of space and the fourth of time. Naturally, it appears that the dimension or frame of reference of time contains the three dimensions of space as a composite. What puzzles me is the possibility of another frame of reference – of mind. If you accept it, then the next question is whether it contains frame of reference of time or vice-versa. And, extending this doubt to an extreme, and putting it more generally, is it possible that these two frames of reference are - uniquely - mutually-recursive? For example, you know the current time or some notion of time, because of your mind, that can think about it (time contained by mind) and you are likely to change your mind about something, sometime (mind contained by time)? Mutual recursion poses an interesting problem - for it leads to chaos. This begs the question whether the chaos could possibly be true, or is simply beyond our comprehension, to even reason about it being true?

Vikaras

Something that has always stuck with me and something that I learned in early years, was the inability of bhautik humans to control our indriyas and the inability to fight the vikaras - Kam (sexual desires), Krodh (Anger), Moh (Materialism), Maya (Relationships), Aalysa (Laziness) and Pramad (Self importance). Later on, somewhere else I read a story where a learned-being who happened to have mastered his indriyas and resist all of the above vikaras. One day God decided to take his test, and tempted him to give into the vikaras, one by one, in a series of tests. At each test, the learned-being truly passed God’s test. After the final test, God disguised himself/herself as an ordinary person and met him. He told God about the series of incidents that had occurred today, boasting how he successfully managed to resist all temptations. God smiled. The learned-being had truly resisted all temptations, all but, the arrogance of success.

Simplicity of the truth

Someone once asked me – Do you know what is Gyan? I didn’t understand her. Ignorantly and thinking ‘smartie me’, I came up with fairly good logical and philosophical answer. She said no – this wasn’t it. I was surprised. For a moment, I was in disbelief. She said Gyan is absence of Agyan. Today, after several months, I have understood it - the simplicity of the truth. Truth is a simple notion, clouded by noise, that may appear rational otherwise. (From another perspective, the question could be generalised to any duality, where one is real, and the other is absence of it, and not really real, for example, light and darkness.)

The next big thing(s)!

Someone famous once said that all problems in computing can be solved by an extra level of indirection. Very true, and something we are silently witnessing as SOA (Services Oriented Architecture) vision is being cooked by several small and big companies. Most of the people often say X is the next big thing in computing, and the argument falls apart or at least, falls short of expectations, most of the times sometime later, since the context for this X is not specified or is too wide. Here is my 2 paisa on some Xs. ‘with’ some contexts.

Let’s get back to the basics – why do we need Information Technology industry – umm... - automation, computation, analysis etc. and futuristic reasons why it maybe helpful – business process optimization. All good stuff; very helpful to say the least, maybe even vital for the several industries, for example, medical, communication, transport, commerce etc.

Let’s assume a very simple breakdown for this Information Technology industry (incorporate several perspectives – technological, monetary, customer usage etc.) - (normal) computing and enterprise computing.

For example, from a technological perspective – a) there is a difference in hardware characteristics (big iron vs. commodity hardware, multi-chip multi-core, innovative caching models, high speed interconnect bandwidth and FSB, virtualization at multiple levels, higher impact of the memory wall problem, not only price/performance but price/performance/watt, scale-out scale-up scale-within, Mean-time-between-failure, on-demand resource availability etc.), b) there is a difference in software characteristics, and a profound one (multi-threaded programming vs. programming. The former is orders of magnitude more difficult (productivity, formal correctness etc.) than latter. The good news is that 99.99% programmers today, don’t know or don’t care about it. The bad news is that this number is going to change very rapidly with commodity multi-core systems; more and more programmers would need to understand this, and it is difficult. I don’t understand it completely. So, here lies an opportunity for some very clear headed smart people to develop abstractions that simplify this programming model for us, the masses).

So, linking back to what I really wanted to say – I think the next big thing in the context of enterprise computing is SOA. Why? Simply because unlike current computing infrastructure that natively automates technological functions, it natively enables automation of business processes. Obviously simplicity, standardization, reuse and interoperability are other benefits.

The next big thing in the context of client-side (normal) computing is more difficult to assess – I see it as browser based rich client platforms – that allow you do run your usual apps, for example, office productivity things - word-processors, spreadsheets; email, calendars and group calendars, team spaces etc. all within the browser, without any loss in richness of user-interface or functionality, when compared to ‘conventional’ office productivity things; in fact, also opening up a new domain of collaboration and sharing innovation. You can simply use single-sign-on on any system anywhere on the globe (password authenticated or Sun-ray-card-like authentication) and access all your usual apps and data. Another X here is a simpler programming model.

The next big thing in the context of fundamental CPU arithmetic is the Decimal Floating Point Unit (DFPUs), something we thought was too expensive 50 years ago, but is now back in fashion, and something that will hit all CPU designers very quickly.

And, the next big thing in the context of fundamental software engineering abstractions is Aspects (taking care of horizontal abstractions, Object-Orientation is the best thing we have today, but it only caters vertical abstractions.)

Finally, the next big thing in the context of wider adoption of computing technology – consumability and simplicity. All the people in IT need to learn from television set makers or car manufacturers – and see how these people beautifully hide the underlying complexity and give either a remote or set with few buttons or simple operating model of gears, clutch, and the accelerator (oh! and the brakes!).

The above also implicitly implies the change of focus towards 'business analysts' and away from 'code monkeys' in next few years. Code monkeys of the past are likely to be hot business analysts of future, only if they are willing to reinvent themselves.

More on SOA in the next entry.

Urdu poetry?

I wonder why the poets and philosophers in the western world haven’t yet gone crazy about Urdu poetry. It’s simply awesome, but mostly undiscovered by many. Yes, language and loss of meaning and/or context in translation is an issue, but really, there must be some really good bi-lingual poets who could help us? Honestly, I don't understand much of it, still it feels something good. An interesting couplet humming in my mind at the moment – “Mat pooch ke kya haal hai mera tere peeche Tu dekh ke kya rang hai tera mere aage.” by Mirza Ghalib
[Goooogle].

Survival of the innovative!

Here is another bold claim – as we move forward in next 5, 10 or 25 years, it seems that “Survival of the fittest” will get replaced by “Survival of the innovative”! Why? Commoditization is the norm, automation simply follows. So, cool innovative things of past become obvious commodities of today, and automated things when in the future. If we don’t move with time, always riding the cool innovative wave, we are very likely to be hit by commoditization and/or automation.

Managing your career or life

One of the problems I face is recreating the chain of thoughts I had few weeks ago, and this is one of them, when I was speaking to Prashant and later Amisha. So this is likely to be little vague. Another problem I found since I started to blog is that I cannot explain it well, partially consciously, partially sub-consciously – I feel that we cannot communicate thoughts with perfection in any natural language, we tend to be at different levels of abstraction, another reason of multiple contradicting truths. Any attempts to provide clarification, for example, with an example tend to put you on a different level of abstraction and focus changes to this different level, which is not what was intended.

Let’s put people in boxes, the typical wrong thing to do. People tend to manage their lives or career as – micro-managers, managers and macro-managers. Micro-managers (bhautik) plan every little thing, for example, money, fame, etc. Success usually equates to money. A very practical view of the world, indeed. Managers are concerned, but not obsessed like the former. Nice. Macro-managers (adyathm) surprise me, I think you can feel it, just like other emotions like happiness, which you can feel but not see or hear. Two words summaries them – natural and flow. Everything just happens naturally, and most of things are good or very good, by simply being truly good at heart. Success flows without a real desire for it. (A perfect example for Karmanye Vaadhika-raste, Maa Phaleshu Kadachana).

Which is good? Obviously, all. This follows again from multiple contradicting truths.

Are we born as micro-managers, managers or macro-managers? Hmm. I don’t know what I was born to be (likely manager), but since I have been in touch with one or two macro-managers, it has completely changed the way I think. I’m more and more inclined towards macro-management, a completely different feeling. But there are moments, when I get back being what I was naturally born to be. However, sooner or later, I expect these moments to become fewer, and eventually maybe even disappear.

So, what have we learned in last 1,000 years?

This was a hot lunch debate last week with Pete, Graham, Robin, Matthew, Neil, et al.

Something I was talking to my friends the other day – a pessimistic view. 1,000 years ago, we didn’t have lots of good things we take for granted today – education for the masses, science, technology, medicine, you-name-it. In 1006 A.D. we were fighting for religion in Jerusalem; fast-forward and come to 2006, we are still fighting in Jerusalem, for religion. What happened to the education? What happened to oneness of god – something that every religion preaches? It gets thrown out of the window and we are back being savages. It appears to me that rate of progress made by us as individuals in the last 1,000 years is far more than the rate of progress made by us as collections/groups/communities. We as groups are as dumb as groups in 1006 A.D.

Why we must see the regular 200-300-400 years phase change?

I discussed this with Brian, Pete, Robin et al a few weeks ago.

Every 200-300-400 years there is a phase change. We don’t tend to live that long, so we don’t get a chance to ‘see’ the change – but it’s there. If we see past 1,000 or 2,000 or more years of history, the hidden phases will appear from no-where in front of us. For example, Europe renaissance, United States of America, …, China/India etc. It goes, it comes, it goes, it comes.

Here is a bold prediction – I think over next 25 years or so, national boundaries will become immaterial – it will be people who believe in the phase change and people who don’t or don’t want to. The ‘right’ appears is to be at the right place at the right time and do the right thing – so being able to see a phase change and make sure you are riding the up-curve. Sheer opportunism? Well, maybe.

Reading books is good?

Reading books is good, if you want to learn about something. Is it always good? Could it inhibit your thinking by providing you a generally accepted pre-conceived view of the world? Imagine Galileo reading books in the 15th century, learning that the Earth in the centre of our solar system and that Sun and other planets revolve around it?

(I don't like to read Philosophy (many of my friends suggested reading x or y), for the same reason; though I’m delighted to discuss Philosophy. Maybe I'm being an ignorant daft.)

Invention vs. Innovation

The (new) IBM thinking:

Invention: Converting money into ideas
Innovation: Converting ideas into money

Note: All content in the blog is based on my personal views and does not reflect the views of my professional or academic affiliations.

Pleasantness

Pleasantness = Intellect or Beauty or x / Arrogance

Inspired by:

Satisfaction = Perceived reality - Expectations

Levels - where do you want to be tomorrow?

Based on 20/12/2005 19:30 GMT thoughts. I discussed this a while back with Pulkit and later, Piyush.

This entry should be read bottom-up.

Level 5
(Any ideas/suggestions?)

Level 4
a) Level-3-on-rent-on-demand

Level 3 (Theme: Risk)
d) Science innovation – for example, new disciplines
(Services Sciences)
c) Business innovation – for example, new business models
(google-advertising, software-as-a-service)
b) Technical innovation – for example, disruptive price/performance thru technology
(Google, Power 4)
a) Entrepreneurship

Level 2 (Theme: Responsibility)
d) Profit/Loss accounting
c) Technical leadership
b) People management
a) Team leadership

Level 1 (Normal day job)
d) Better industry
c) Better company
b) Better role
a) Basic stuff – money, influence, safety, comfort zone

Choice of level: Life objectives, priorities etc.
One may be at more than one level at any given time
Level n-1 isn’t worse than level n

Where's the grey?

Everytime you see a question or thought which is of form black or white? Just think about the shades of grey. Seems to solve the problem.

Do you believe in multiple and contradicting truths?

I do. It’s difficult – for starters, it contradicts itself, and I must agree with you if you say you believe in oneness of truth. Let’s leave this aside for a moment, as I don't have a reasonable explanation for it.

I find amazing peace and calmness in the notion of multiple and potentially contradicting truths. It helps me understand the way life unfolds itself in new ways. This thought also happens to be a view/(some-better-word-needed) of the bigger picture I have in mind. Will post that in few days.

What do you think?

I have many thoughts in my mind, all the time. The one I'm thinking right now (and for a while), is whether we need utopia - will we, mere mortals accept such a life? If I by some magic could work towards such an utopia, would it be a sin in the bigger abstract picture?